What is it that doctors actually do? The answer is not obvious and I say that as a physician who has spent the past 30 years in hospitals. But the question matters. Which tasks can be done better or more cheaply by nurses, paramedics or AI depends upon it. So, too, does the government’s push to create NHS Online.

Trailed last September in Sir Keir Starmer’s speech at the Labour conference, the service is due to open in 2027. ‘The NHS’s new online hospital will see a huge shift in the way we deliver care,’ said Stella Vig, clinical director for elective care at NHS England. What she doesn’t say – what nobody says – is how anyone could know such a shift will be an improvement.

NHS Online will provide 8.5 million virtual appointments in its first three years; officials have been keen to point out this is four times as many clinic appointments as the average NHS trust. The initial focus will be on a range of common conditions: women’s health, eye problems, anaemia and others.

To practise medicine without walking the wards would be fraud

To practise medicine without walking the wards would be fraud

This week, the NHS published a survey showing the opportunity to work flexibly – to see patients without needing to be in the same room as them – was........

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